Legislation hailed by supporters as the most significant change to college student lending in a generation passed the House on Sunday night.

The student aid initiative, which House Democrats attached to their final amendments to the health-care bill, would overhaul the student loan industry, eliminating a $60 billion program that supports private student loans with federal subsidies and replacing it with government lending to students. The House amendments will now go to the Senate.

By ending the subsidies and effectively eliminating the middleman, the student loan bill would generate $61 billion in savings over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Amid debates about encouraging all Americans to get at least some postsecondary education, a potential downside has been identified. Social scientists have long speculated that those who aspire to a college degree but fail to attain one will suffer psychologically as a result of reaching too high for dreams they couldn't realize.

The article published March 13, "Schools spar over stimulus funding," by Jeremy Wallace, does not clearly explain that it is the students themselves who decide where they will go to school and where their Pell grant money will be spent. The fact that so many students choose private, for-profit colleges and universities simply reflects the effective job these institutions are doing, not that for-profits are in any way abusing taxpayer funds. Perhaps a more helpful article might be about why the public sector is not doing a better job of educating the students with the greatest need for higher education.